Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Doin' the Don't

The most entertaining job I ever had was as a croupier in a Mississippi riverboat casino. Craps, for those of you who don't know, is an extremely complex, fast-paced dice game, involving dozens of simultaneous bets on the outcome of the next roll of the dice.

I remember one of my instructors very vividly; "Jeff" was one of the hardcore Vegas and Reno veterans who taught us for the six months prior to our casino's grand opening. His crass humor and outrageousness reminded me of Van Halen singer David Lee Roth. He'd come in and bellow out bawdy stick calls, shouting off-colour reminders in our ears if we forgot to collect a bet or miscalculated.

I can still hear him shouting "DON'T COME ERIC!" into my ear and laughing. I had forgotten to collect the bets in the blind spot of my peripheral vision.

"Doin' the Don't" in the casino world means placing a bet in the "Don't Come" corner of the table -- betting the shooter won't roll a winning number.

So in fond tribute to my foul-mouthed mentor of yore, today I'm Doin' the Don't.

I'm betting Rove walks.

Here's why:

Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, was a Bush appointee. Although he appears to be going after Rove with a deserved tenacity, White House appointees have an uncanny knack for exonerating anyone and everyone connected to the White House -- witness the 9/11 Commission, the WMD Commission and Schlesinger Commission's um... "failures" to hold anyone in the Administration responsible for, well ANYTHING really.

And while it's fun to watch that ventriloquist's mannikin McLellan squirm as it's publicly humiliated (BTW, how does Rove fit his hand up its ass?), the running White House "let's wait and see" gambit has a sinister ring to it. I'm betting either Fitzgerald's really just another domesticated White House pet, or some of the "evidence" he's going to conveniently be furnished with is going to blow the whole case. And in the end, in the long-standing tradition of recent Republican "Presidents", Bush is likely to pardon anyone found guilty anyway.

2 comments:

It’s amazing how the mainstream media and the Democratic Party are working together to prepare for the 2008 election. That’s what the revival of this Joe Wilson/Karl Rove story is all about. Here is what the liberal media is not telling you.

1. Joe Wilson is a Democratic Party operative with an axe to grind.

2. His “internal” report to the CIA after his return from Niger supported the Bush position that Iraq had attempted to buy nuclear bomb making materials from Niger.

3. His wife was not a covert.

4. Karl Rove did not reveal her name to any journalist.

5. Journalist Bob Novak told Karl Rove about Valerie Plame.

6. No crime has been committed, by anyone.

7. Many of the same newspapers that are calling for Karl Rove to resign have also filed briefs with the courts saying no crime was committed.

So why is this still a story? Because Karl Rove is going to be a key figure in the next presidential election and since he has kicked the Democrats collective asses for about 20 years now, they need to do anything they can to discredit him. I love the old line that Harry Truman once said on the election trail. When a support shouted out, “Give ‘em hell, Harry!” He responded, “I don’t give them hell, I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” That’s what Rove does to the Democrats and why he is so effective at fighting them in the political arena. That is also why the Democrats must do what they can to demonize him. I don’t know who Karl Rove will help guide to the White House in 2008, but whoever it is, the Democrats are worried that another Rove led campaign will keep them from the White House again.

1. No he's not. He's a retired diplomat working for an international consultancy. Feel free to verify.

2. No it didn't. He concluded exactly the opposite and the papers were proven to be (very amateur) forgeries.

3. Yes she was. She lost covert status after her identity was disclosed by Novak.

4. No he just said "the wife of Wilson (the ambassador who debunked the Niger uranium justification for the invasion)".

5. Even if he did (and he got his info from... oh, I don't know... maybe "Scooter" LIBBY) Rove STILL disclosed it to Cooper -- and told others Plame was "fair game". But seeing as Rove was fired by Bush SR for a previous leak to Robert Novak, I find that more than just a little... um... UNLIKELY.

6. Well, I imagine that'll be up to the courts to decide, not wishful right-wingers.

7. I don't know what you're talking about. Lawyers file briefs, not newspapers. And why would "the same newspapers" go out of their way to defend the guy why calling for his head?!? You're just not making any sense here, I'm afraid....

Election, schmelection. I personally just want dirty tricksters -- like the sort who would smear YOUR GUY Senator McCain -- to be rightfully stopped. You should want the same thing.

About Me

Eric A. Smith earned his journalism BA at the University of North Carolina.
A former science reporter in Research Triangle Park, NC, and IT instructor in Canada, the US and Japan, he's traveled to some of the most beautiful, exotic places in the world, climbed mountains, run casino games on a Mississippi riverboat, and sung and drummed for rock and roll bands. He's met some of the world's most famous actors, directors, politicians, inventors, poets, writers, musicians and scientists, and learned whatever wisdom they were willing to impart to along the way.
He is also a certified PC field service technician, with CDI, A+, Network+ and MCP tickets, and is a proud founding member of the open voting consortium.
In Canada, he has been a digital prepress instructor teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Pagemaker and Flash.
He currently works as a freelance writer and instructor.